I want you to imagine for a moment that you are at a park. A young boy sits on the platform to a piece of playground equipment. He’s wearing nice pants and a button up shirt. He’s just sitting there reading and minding his own business when another boy comes over to him. Instead of sitting down or saying “hi” this other boy pushes him off the platform. He skins his knees and hands. His book is torn. He’s crying as the parents of both children come running. Now imagine if the parents of the boy that did the pushing said, “well we’ll punish our child, but really yours shouldn’t have made himself such a target. I mean what did he expect to happen dressed that way?” Then imagine the parents of the hurt boy instead of responding with rage responding with, “Well yeah, but we’re trying to let him be himself and he really likes those shirts and prefers reading to football. Maybe after this he’ll see and stop making himself such a target.” It seems ridiculous, but it’s what women face.
The year is 2017 and Congresswoman Bernice Johnson just said that “you can have behaviors that appear to be inviting. It can be interpreted as such. That’s the responsibility, I think, of the female.” (Scott, E. 2017) The problem with this statement is that despite the fact that it’s not true, it’s widely believed. Women are taught from a young age that what people do to them is their fault. Yes she did go on to say that despite her feelings on shared responsibility “criminals need to be held accountable for their actions.”(Scott, E. 2017) How though are we to hold criminals responsible for their actions when women are being told that it’s their fault. No matter how much you tell women to come forward if they believe that it was their fault or just a misunderstanding then they won’t. This is toxic and needs to change.
If a woman is sexually assaulted it does not matter if she is wearing sweatpants, a modest pants suite, a miniskirt, or nude. It is not her responsibility to dress in a way that will control the urges of the men around her. It is the responsibility of the man to control his urges and react in a way that is appropriate. There are several steps that I believe we need to take in order to change this toxic culture.
We need to stop having school dress codes that target girls more than boys. As an example we need to stop telling them that they can’t show their shoulders because it is distracting to the boys. I’m not saying that we need to let people go to school in just thongs, but if you want people to keep their shoulders covered in school give a reason that isn’t “well boys can’t control themselves.” Don’t tell girls, “you can’t do this because it distracts the boys.” Tell them “you can’t do this because we are trying to follow a professional way of dressing and currently this is what is accepted in the work environment.” Admit that in time it may or may not change. Own the fact that it’s an arbitrary convention. Don’t tell them it’s because they are too distracting to the boys. If that is the only reason that something is against the rules then the boys not the girls are the ones that should be addressed and taught how to control themselves.
Then you need to make the same changes at school and in church. I’m certain my parents didn’t mean to teach me that the behavior of boys was my fault, but they did. Skirts that were shorter than they approved, shirts that showed my stomach, and tight clothes were all things that they would comment on. They let me wear them occasionally even though they disapproved, but it was always with warnings about how boys might react and I’ve seen worse. I’ve seen religious organizations tell women they must dress modestly lest they lead men to sin. I’ve seen religious organizations ask the woman to admit that she led her rapist astray with the clothing she was wearing. We need to stop focusing on teaching women how to dress in order to keep men from assaulting them and focus on teaching men how not to assault women no matter how they are dressed.
I don’t know how many more ways to say it, but our culture needs to stop telling women that they way they dress is responsible for the things men do to them. It needs to stop teaching boys that what they do to women is a reaction to how they dress and not their fault. Women do not need to take partial responsibility for harassment and assault that happens to them. Men need to take full responsibility for how they treat the women around them. Men need to understand that just because a woman “dresses like a slut” does not mean that she wants his attention. They need to learn that when a woman says “no” it is not just her playing hard to get and wanting him to try harder.
References:
Scott, E. (2017, October 19) A Texas congresswoman said women are just as responsible for preventing sexual assault. The Washington Post, Retrieved from Washingtonpost.com
References:
Scott, E. (2017, October 19) A Texas congresswoman said women are just as responsible for preventing sexual assault. The Washington Post, Retrieved from Washingtonpost.com
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